Extra Services

Try Chinese style, Okinawan style or mixed?

By: KC

Date Posted: 2001-06-01

Liming is an Izakaya or a Japanese style pub with a specialty of serving Chinese-style dishes. It also serves seafood, beer and alcoholic drinks. Here customers also have a chance to try some Chinese wines for an experience that is not so common in the island’s hundreds of izakayas.

Liming serves three kinds of wine labeled “Great Wall”: rose, red and white. The restaurant’s owner, Akio Kurihara, was trained as a Chinese chef in Tokyo but came to Okinawa 16 years ago after marrying his Okinawan wife. He opened his new restaurant last November. Since he was trained to cook Chinese food, he made dishes from China the staples in his menu. He also serves Okinawan liquors and small dishes at customers’ request.

From his menu, Kurihara recommends stewed ox tail, Chinese-style cold tofu, and boiled crab with hot sauce, all cooked to perfection in authentic Chinese style. The menu has over 80 Chinese items with the main focus on Peking and Shezhuan style dishes. The menu includes salads and soups.

Another Kurihara’s original is Okinawan food cooked and served in Chinese style, including Mimigar (pig’s ears sauté, a popular Okinawan snack) salad, and Chinese style Tebichi (cooked pig’s foot).

As a proof of the restaurant’s quality and popularity Kurihara says that he regularly receives orders from outside of Okinawa. “We recently sent 20 servings of our Mimigar salad and Tebichi to a customer in Osaka,” Kurihara boasts. Currently, he is also hard at work creating new original dishes to add to his menu.

He is also planning to increase his selection of awamori and other Okinawan liquors. He says his new menu will be ready in July.

Liming is also open at lunchtime serving a choice of lunch specials. The lunch menu varies from day to day, and offers two Chinese-style main dishes, salad, soup, pickles, drink and dessert. The second helping is free excluding the main dishes. The cost for a lunch is ¥780 including tax. Two other choices for a lunch are Shrimp with Chili Sauce and Beef and Green Peppers.

To get to Liming, drive straight out of Kadena Gate 3 and continue until you come to Highway 329. Turn left and immediately right at the light by KFC. Turn left again after 50 meters and Liming will be on your left.